The truth is in the TOE: What to look at to understand how the Army is changing

By Joseph Trevithick

Best Defense directorate of force structure history and
analysis

The U.S. Army has changed dramatically after a decade of
being involved in Afghanistan and Iraq. We will not likely know the true extent of this change for some time,
especially if there are more major conflicts to come.

I feel a lot of insight, however, can be garnered from the organization of the Army,
both in terms of force structure and force posture. It had been very true over the years that one
could modify the old adage and say that "no unit structure survives contact
with the enemy," but how the Army organizes itself on paper is generally a
reflection of how it expects to or perhaps would like to fight. How it then adapts to a conflict becomes a
further comment on the institution.

When I saw Tom Ricks had written "My impression is that the
Army is kind of all over the place these days," I suspected he was more
right than he might know. The
changes in the structure of the Army are also, in my mind, a lasting legacy of
U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In many
ways the U.S. Army spent much of the time after leaving Vietnam being at war
with itself over its role in a rapidly changing world. It tried very hard to distance itself from
counterinsurgency on an institutional level and largely reoriented itself for a
traditional combined arms battle in Europe or Asia. When the Cold War in Europe collapsed, the
Army found itself in the midst of changes that were in many ways no longer
applicable.

The upheaval can be seen in force structure initiatives, of
which there have been many since the end of World War II. Between 1950 and 1975, the U.S. Army had six
major force structure initiatives (f you separate out the two variants of the
Pentomic force and the Air Assault Division). Three of the six were implemented in some form, although the Airmobile
Division that came in to being was dramatically different from the original
design of the Air Assault Division. Between 1975 and 2000, there were another six major force structure
initiatives (seven if one counts the embryonic elements of what would become
today's modular force structure). The
Army of Excellence is probably the only one that can be said to have been largely
implemented.

In many cases, the Army was clearly not sure what it
wanted. The Army experimented with a
High Technology Light Division and subsequently a Motorized Division during the
late 1970s and 1980s. Unable to define
the many of the major equipment requirements, the test units made do largely
with surrogates. The Army waffled so
much on these proposed rapidly deployable light division concepts that by 1990
it had left the test unit, 9th Infantry Division (Motorized), with
one of its three brigades converted to a motorized structure, one brigade half
converted, and the last brigade a mechanized infantry brigade from the
Washington Army National Guard, attached in an attempt to maintain its
readiness to deploy to an actual contingency.

Even when the U.S. Army finally inactivated the 9th
Infantry Division in 1991, it refused to make a firm decision on the
experimental motorized concept, re-flagging the Division's one fully converted
brigade as the 199th Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Motorized) before
finally inactivating the unit a year later. The rapid intervention mission was subsequently passed to the 7th
Infantry Division (Light), which was subjected to major modifications to its
organization before it too was inactivated in 1994.

The Army was moving so fast in the twilight of the Cold War
that even the force structure initiatives that were viewed as more conventional
could not be fully implemented. The
Force XXI concept was still being fleshed out as the Soviet Union crumbled and
in the end the decision was made to not fully convert all divisions to the new
structure. Instead a modification of the
previous Army of Excellence divisional structures was developed, which included
some of the elements of the Force XXI structure, and units were reorganized as
Limited Conversion Divisions.

The end of the Cold War also caused a reexamination of the
need for a rapidly deployable element to tackle hotspots around the world. This requirement eventually led to the
modular force structure and one of the biggest changes in the U.S. Army since the
end of World War II: the brigade-centric deployment concept. Prior to the modular force structure,
brigades were supported by a plethora of different elements assigned to their
parent division. Portions, or "slices,"
of divisional field and air defense artillery, military police, chemical, and
other units had habitual relationships with the division's brigades. Only separate brigades had these elements
directly assigned.

What was first known as the Brigade Unit of Action was
designed to change this entirely, with artillery and other support elements
organic to all maneuver brigades Army-wide. It was unclear what role, if any, the division as a concept would then
play or what size they would be. For a
time, there were plans to active two more brigades of 25th Infantry
Division and base them in the continental U.S. In the end, it was determined that divisions would adopt a four-brigade
or "square" configuration, even if they would not likely deploy as a complete
division ever again. The division headquarters,
as well as corps headquarters, have since become essentially deployable task
force headquarters, capable of managing a multitude of units.

The problem with all of this was that while the modular
concept was being explored and developed, a group of terrorists perpetrated
major attacks in the United States on September 11th, 2001. In an instant, the U.S. Army was called into
action and by the time the transition to Modular Force really got moving in
2004, it was heavily engaged. It was
also heavily engaged in conflicts that brought home the legacy of institutional
un-learning with regards to counterinsurgency over the better part of the
previous 3 decades. In short, as the
Global War on Terrorism (now supposed to be referred to even more broadly as Overseas
Contingency Operations) ramped up the Army was already in the midst of an
organizational transition and then found itself in another one.

[[BREAK]]

If no force structure ever survives the rigor of combat,
then Army units in the field between 2001 and 2006 were compelled to seek out
expedients to expedients. For instance,
during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, Headquarters and Headquarters
Battery (HHB), Division Artillery (DIVARTY), 1st Armored Division
had taken command of what amounted to a provisional brigade combat team and was
tasked with securing the Al-Rashid District of Baghdad. Its attached units were largely artillery
units that had converted to infantry and operated as motorized task forces. When the 1st Cavalry Division
deployed in 2004, it added a level of formalization to this concept by standing
up 5th
Brigade (Provisional), led by HHB, DIVARTY, 1st Cavalry Division
and taking control of many of the converted units already operating in
Al-Rashid.

The improvised explosive device (IED) threat also provoked
changes as the US military as a whole started making huge investments into
various technologies like the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP)
vehicle fleet. For the U.S. Army, this
meant that in many cases its coveted heavy vehicles, or even its new
medium-weight Strykers, would be left on the sidelines. Last October, the U.S. Army announced
that 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division would
deploy to Afghanistan without its Strykers and would make use of a brigade package
of MRAPs already in theater. The jury is
still out on the Stryker family itself, a vehicle and associated concept that
was clearly a spiritual successor to previous motorized force concepts, which
received a similar level of support during its initial development.

Though the modular force has largely taken hold since 2006,
the Army continues to modify it, and as one might expect, there continue to be
exceptions. The change in focus to
security force assistance in Iraq caused the U.S. Army to develop an "Advise and
Assist" structure for modular brigade combat teams. For a period, 1st Brigade, 1st
Infantry Division had the mission of training units for this mission and even
deployed small groups as security force companies for Military Transition
Teams. Also, though likely slated for
inactivation in the near future, two "legacy" separate heavy brigades in
Germany are organized along the old Force XXI structure. The cavalry regiment, of which the Army has
two remaining with a combat mission, also occupies a unique place in the force
that would require an entire separate examination of the changes in the cavalry
branch over the years.

With the conflict in Iraq effectively over for the Army and
the one in Afghanistan winding down, the U.S. Army is looking toward a "Strategic
Reset," which will no doubt result in more upheaval as it tries to combine what
it had planned for the force prior to September 11th, 2001 with what
has been implemented since. To this end,
last February the Army Capabilities Integration Center's Future Force
Integration Directorate became the Brigade Modernization
Command (BMC). The Future Force
Integration Directorate had been established to support the Future Combat
Systems program, which was effectively canceled in 2008 (some elements were
subsequently spun out into their own separate programs). The BMC is now focused on broadly evaluating
technologies and tactics, techniques and procedures for the U.S. Army.

In closing, I would also like to make clear that I am not a
member of the U.S. Army or any other service or a veteran. I cannot speak to additional dramatic changes
in the areas of leadership or the significant subjects in the Army's recently
released Health
and Discipline Report. The Army has
changed in many ways and organization
is just one of them. I clearly think it
is an important piece to keep an eye on, but it is definitely only one of
many.

Joseph Trevithick is a
Research Associate at GlobalSecurity.org and a historical consultant for Ambush
Alley Games. He co-authored Ambush
Valley: Vietnam 1965-1975 which was
published last October by Osprey Publishing.